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Sports

Trevor Huddleston Makes His Mark On Track

Agoura Hills teenager has taken to the family business, and is at the top of the driver standings in Bandoleros Division at Toyota Speedway.

After years of pleading, Trevor Huddleston, the 14-year-old son of a two-time Irwindale Toyota Speedway track champion, finally has his own race car.

Huddleston of Agoura Hills races in the Bandoleros division, a class of youth drivers in miniature race cars that can reach speeds of 70 mph, at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale, and is part of a four-car team owned by his dad, Tim Huddleston.

"He's been begging for three years to drive a Bando," Tim Huddleston said. "Mom and Dad were just not ready. Now I know what my dad goes through watching me race."

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Tim Huddleston still races at Irwindale in the NASCAR Late Model division. He owns a five-car team that race regularly in the NASCAR Late Models and he is used to having parents come to him asking for opportunities for their kids to race.

One of the things he tells those parents is to treat his team like a college. The crew chiefs are the professors and the parents shouldn't try to tell them how to teach, he said. In the case of the Bandoleros team, Mike Dunkleberger is the crew chief, the professor so to speak, and Dad has been doing his best to let the teacher teach.

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"I'm practicing what I preach and it's very hard," Tim Huddleston, the senior, said. "I'm a parent. I own the car, but he's treating me like a parent over there. I think that's the coolest."

Sometimes Tim Huddleston oversteps his boundaries and Dunkleberger has to remind him who is in charge of the Bandoleros team. Trevor Huddleston battled to a hard-fought third-place finish in a race on Friday night and Dad kept coming into the pits, he said, to offer advice, support and encouragement.

"The hardest part is keeping the parents out of it," Dunkleberger said. "I kicked him out of the pits twice. The parents are the hardest thing."

While the parents can be challenging at times, the kids are a joy.

Dunkleberger said the Bandoleros drivers are just like Little League baseball players in the sense they don't take their sport too seriously. "They are more interested in having fun than winning races."

Trevor Huddleston has been a quick learner. He has a little less than a year of experience racing the Bandoleros, but he is leading the Bandoleros standings at the track after nine races. He is 22 points ahead of R.J. Stearns of Rancho Cucamonga.

"It's going good. I've won three races," said Huddleston, who will be a freshman at Agoura High in the fall. "I'm a little surprised. It's somewhat surprising, but it's a team effort."

He won his most recent race on Saturday night, leading every lap and extending his lead in the Bandoleros standings. He also dominated the race on opening night in March and again on May 22.

Auto racing is not the only sport for Trevor Huddleston. He is on the freshman football team and wants to play baseball in the spring at Agoura High School.

He said his goals at the beginning of the auto racing season were to win a race and finish in the top five in points in the Bandoleros standings. He has accomplished one of his goals and is well on his way to the other.

Huddleston plans to move up in class in racing at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale in the S2 stock car division next year.

"I grew up at the track. I just love being here," Huddleston said. "I'd rather have this than other sports."

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